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Article history:
Received 28 August 2009
Received in revised form 25 May 2010
Accepted 9 June 2010
Keywords:
Benin
Biodiversity conservation
Pendjari National Park
Local communities
People perception
Resource use
a b s t r a c t
Commitment of local communities to protected areas is essential for conserving biodiversity. However, in
many developing countries like Benin, former management strategies kept human from protected areas
using coercion. Fortunately, more recent regimes attempt to give local populations more control on the
management but little is known about local residents' perceptions, beliefs and attitudes toward the
management of these areas. This study, carried out around the Pendjari National Park, determined factors
which support local communities' positive perceptions towards biodiversity conservation in the park,
analysed their assessment of current park management activities compared to former management
approaches and draw the implications for effective participatory management of protected areas. We
collected socio-demographic data from 164 residents on their awareness of conservation methods. We
used Stepwise Discriminant Analysis to differentiate the variables that had the greatest power for
discriminating between local residents' perception to conserve or not biodiversity and to manage the park.
The ndings indicated that the positive behavior of local communities towards conservation of
biodiversity within Pendjari National Park was highly correlated with the current management strategy
that involved more effectively local communities, the educational level of participants and their
geographical origins. Participants' perceptions of biodiversity conservation were strongly related to
locally perceived benets. Although 89% of participants were favorable to the concept of biodiversity
conservation within the park, the decision to ban encroachments due to agricultural activities increased
negative opinion on this park management option. Our results suggested that understanding local
residents' perceptions and using them as a starting point to improve the parkpeople relationship could
help park management staff to involve more effectively local communities and improve their awareness
about biodiversity conservation within the park.
2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In Africa, protected areas are the cornerstone of biological
conservation. As dened by the International Union for Conservation
of Nature (IUCN), protected area is a clearly dened geographical
space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other
effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with
associated ecosystem services and cultural values (Dudley, 2008). One
basic objective of a system plan for protected areas is to effectively
protect, develop and maintain representative samples of the various
biotopes in the areas where they are installed (Abuzinada, 2003).
Although protected areas have usually been set aside from human
exploitation, it is now increasingly recognized that they should play a
role in sustaining livelihood of adjacent local communities (Hamilton
et al., 2000; Walpole and Goodwin, 2001; Charnley et al., 2007). Forest
506
that local people perception is inuenced by the type of management and the benets they perceived from protected areas (Ormsby
and Kaplin, 2005), we hypothesized that people who developed
positive perception about Pendjari National Park and its biodiversity
are those who get high benets from the park. We also made the
assumption that people who have positive opinion about the current
park management methods developed positive perception about
biodiversity conservation within it. Based on preliminary results
(Gillingham and Lee, 1999; Mehta and Heinen, 2001) and knowledge of cultural differences among ethnic groups and gender in the
area (Vodouh et al., 2009), we also made assumption that local
communities perceptions are function of their sex, origin, main
activities, formal educational level and ethnic group afliation. The
objectives of this study were to (1) determine factors which support
local communities' current positive perceptions towards biodiversity conservation in Pendjari National Park, and (2) analyse their
assessment of current park management activities compared to
former management approaches and draw the implications for
effective participatory management of protected areas.
2. Methods
2.1. Study area
The study was conducted in the Pendjari Biosphere Reserve
located in the north west of the Republic of Benin (1030 to 1130 N;
050 to 200 E; Fig. 1).
The region mostly lies between 150200 m above sea level and
covers 5000 km2 (IUCN, 2002). The reserve is not fenced, but is
limited by two peripheral roads. The climate is of tropical type with a
seven-month dry period. The vegetation is dominated by savannah
including open grasslands, gallery forest and network of ponds that
are associated with populations of water birds (IUCN, 2002). The
reserve supports and offers the best protection to the largest
populations of roan antelope, western hartebeest, western kob,
buffalo (both the small red forest buffalo and the larger black
savannah form are found), lion and elephant in West Africa (IUCN,
2002; CENAGREF, 2005).
Nearly 30,000 people, divided into three main ethnic groups
(Berba, Gourmantche and Waama) live in 20 villages in the transition
zone of the Pendjari Biosphere reserve (CENAGREF, 2005). The
literacy rate in the study area is very low and the people surrounding
the parks and hunting zones still retain much of their traditional
lifestyles and have extensive knowledge of wildlife resources (IUCN,
2002). The most important livelihood activity is subsistence
agriculture.
Until 1993, the Pendjari National Park was managed using
coercion to keep human from protecting park. This results in
frequent conicts between forests guards and local communities.
To stop this situation, the current management regime attempts to
give local populations more control on the management of the
peripheral areas (CENAGREF, 2005). Therefore, each village has their
villagers associations of wildlife management (AVIGREF); direct
partners of the structure in charge of the park. Their missions are to:
1. Educate the communities from adjacent villages on the necessity to
preserve the fauna and its habitat;
2. raise awareness of local people about the Pendjari National Park's
regulations;
3. assist the National Centre for the Management of Wildlife Reserve
carry out control and surveillance (anti-poaching) activities and
ensure the adherence to regulations related to hunting;
4. promote the sustainable management of fauna (protably for the
local communities);
5. contribute to the management of the zone of controlled activities
and buffer zones; and
507
Fig. 1. Map of Pendjari National Park and its biosphere reserve in the northern part of Benin. It illustrates the location of park surrounding villages and different zones as suggested by
biosphere reserve concept.
Batia
Kan
20
32
Koualgou
Kourou
20
44
Mamoussa
Nanbou
2
12
Gourmantche (6 F, 14 M)
Berba (14 F, 10 M)
Fulani (0 F, 8 M)
Gourmantche (8 F, 12 M)
Berba (16 F, 28 M)
Fulani (0 F, 2 M)
Berba (0 F, 2 M)
Waama (2 F, 6 M)
Fulani (2 F, 2 M)
Waama (14 F, 14 M)
Fulani (4 F, 2 M)
Tchawassaga 28
Wanthoun
6
F = female; M = male.
508
Table 2
Summary of the main questions of the questionnaire and some examples of answers.
Questions
Answers
3. Results
3.1. Factors affecting community acceptance on biodiversity conservation
509
Table 4
Stepwise Discriminant Analysis results showing the variables that have the highest
power for discriminating between local residents' perceptions to support or not the
biodiversity conservation within the Pendjari National Park.
Variables
Degree of
freedom
Wilks'
Lambda
Statistics Signicance
(F)
0. 949
8.446
0.004
0. 924
0. 903
6.394
5.487
0.002
0.001
4. Discussion
Our results suggest that people's positive perceptions of biodiversity conservation were strongly inuenced by their origin, educational
level and assessment about park management. Gender, age, ethnic
grouping, family size or membership of AVIGREF had less inuence.
These meaningful factors may be grouped into socio-demographic
(origin and educational level) and perception factors (assessment
about park management). Perceptions were relative to benets
obtained from park due to the current management approach. Similar
results were found by Pyrovetsi and Daoutopoulos (1997), Sah and
Heinen (2001) and Allendorf et al. (2006) who concluded that
indigenous people may express anti-environmental attitudes for
variety of reasons, including low education levels, lack of awareness
about environmental issues and lack of participation.
People's perceptions of park management strongly inuenced
their perception about biodiversity conservation (Alexander, 2000;
Holmes, 2003; Picard, 2003; McClanahan et al., 2005; Allendorf et al.,
2006). Our results revealed the importance of cooperation between
Values
Degree of freedom
Chi-square
Signicance
Wilks' Lambda
Canonical Correlation
0.823
0.421
8.099
0.004
Table 5
Results of 2 tests of comparison between participant educational degree and their
perception about biodiversity conservation within Pendjari National Park (favorable or
unfavorable); N = 164.
Variables
60.97
Frequency of
participants
favorable to
biodiversity
conservation
within the
park (%)
10.98
Frequency of
participants
unfavorable to
biodiversity
conservation
within the
park (%)
19.51
8.54
373.56
0.0000001
510
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